come down later, play some cards? Old Keith Reed might be coming over, if he can get that truck of his started.’
‘I might do that. Thanks, George.’
George drove away, and I was left alone in the rain again. I walked back across the lane, and up the garden path. Well, I thought, I can’t stand out here all night. I opened the door, and gave it a push, and it swung back with its usual dour groan. I was greeted by shadows, and the familiar smell of old timber and woodsmoke.
‘Anybody home?’ I asked. The stupidest question of all time. The only person home was me. Jane was a month dead and I just wished I could stop imagining her accident over and over again, I just wished I could stop replaying the last blurry seconds of her life like one of those auto crashes they show on TV, with helpless dummies being flung through windshields. Except that Jane hadn’t been a dummy; and neither had our crushed and curled-up child.
I stepped inside the house. There was no question about it: there was something different in the air, as if things had been moved around while I had been away. At first I thought: damn it, I was right, I’ve been burgled. But the long-case clock was still ticking away with weary sedateness in the hallway, the 18th-century painting of foxhounds still hung over the old oak linen-chest. Jane had given me that painting for Christmas, as a kind of affectionate joke about the day we had first met. I had tried to blow the hunting-horn that day, to impress her, and produced nothing more than a loud ripping noise, like a hippopotamus with gas. I could still hear her laughing now.
I closed the door and went upstairs to the bedroom to change out of my wet clothes. I still had this disturbing sensation that somebody had been here apart from me; that things had been touched, picked up and put down again. I was sure that I had left my comb on the bureau, instead of the bedside table. And my bedside clock had stopped.
I tugged on a navy-blue rollneck sweater and a pair of jeans. Then I went downstairs and poured myself my last half-mouthful of Chivas Regal. I had meant to buy more liquor while I was in Salem, but what with all that business with Edward Wardwell about the painting, I had completely forgotten to stop by the Liquor Mart. I swallowed the whisky straight down, and wished I had another. Maybe when the rain eased off I would walk down to the Granitehead Market, and pick up a couple of bottles of wine, and a Gourmet TV dinner, lasagne maybe. I couldn’t have looked another Salisbury steak in the face if you’d threatened to break my fingers. Salisbury steak must be the loneliest food in America.
It was then that I heard the whispering again, as if there were two other people in the house who were discussing me under their breath. I stayed where I was for a little while, listening; but every time I listened too hard the whispering seemed to turn into the wind, gusting under the door, or the gurgle of rain down the waterpipes. I stood up, and walked out into the hallway, with my empty glass in my hand, and said, ‘Hello?’
No answer. Just the steady shudder of loose window-casements. Just the sighing of the wind, and the distant thundering of the sea. ‘It keeps eternal whispering around desolate shores.’ Keats again. I almost damned Jane for her Keats.
I went into the library. It was cold in there, and damp. The desk was strewn with letters and bills and last month’s auction catalogues, under a huge suspended brass lamp that had once hung in the cabin of Captain Henry Prince, in the Astrea II. On the windowsill there were five or six framed photographs: Jane when she was graduating from Wellesley; Jane and I standing outside a roadside diner in New Hampshire; Jane in the front garden of Quaker Lane Cottage; Jane with her mother and father, eyes squeezed up against the winter sunshine. I picked them up, one by one, and looked at them sadly.
Yet, there was something odd about them. None of them
‘I might do that. Thanks, George.’
George drove away, and I was left alone in the rain again. I walked back across the lane, and up the garden path. Well, I thought, I can’t stand out here all night. I opened the door, and gave it a push, and it swung back with its usual dour groan. I was greeted by shadows, and the familiar smell of old timber and woodsmoke.
‘Anybody home?’ I asked. The stupidest question of all time. The only person home was me. Jane was a month dead and I just wished I could stop imagining her accident over and over again, I just wished I could stop replaying the last blurry seconds of her life like one of those auto crashes they show on TV, with helpless dummies being flung through windshields. Except that Jane hadn’t been a dummy; and neither had our crushed and curled-up child.
I stepped inside the house. There was no question about it: there was something different in the air, as if things had been moved around while I had been away. At first I thought: damn it, I was right, I’ve been burgled. But the long-case clock was still ticking away with weary sedateness in the hallway, the 18th-century painting of foxhounds still hung over the old oak linen-chest. Jane had given me that painting for Christmas, as a kind of affectionate joke about the day we had first met. I had tried to blow the hunting-horn that day, to impress her, and produced nothing more than a loud ripping noise, like a hippopotamus with gas. I could still hear her laughing now.
I closed the door and went upstairs to the bedroom to change out of my wet clothes. I still had this disturbing sensation that somebody had been here apart from me; that things had been touched, picked up and put down again. I was sure that I had left my comb on the bureau, instead of the bedside table. And my bedside clock had stopped.
I tugged on a navy-blue rollneck sweater and a pair of jeans. Then I went downstairs and poured myself my last half-mouthful of Chivas Regal. I had meant to buy more liquor while I was in Salem, but what with all that business with Edward Wardwell about the painting, I had completely forgotten to stop by the Liquor Mart. I swallowed the whisky straight down, and wished I had another. Maybe when the rain eased off I would walk down to the Granitehead Market, and pick up a couple of bottles of wine, and a Gourmet TV dinner, lasagne maybe. I couldn’t have looked another Salisbury steak in the face if you’d threatened to break my fingers. Salisbury steak must be the loneliest food in America.
It was then that I heard the whispering again, as if there were two other people in the house who were discussing me under their breath. I stayed where I was for a little while, listening; but every time I listened too hard the whispering seemed to turn into the wind, gusting under the door, or the gurgle of rain down the waterpipes. I stood up, and walked out into the hallway, with my empty glass in my hand, and said, ‘Hello?’
No answer. Just the steady shudder of loose window-casements. Just the sighing of the wind, and the distant thundering of the sea. ‘It keeps eternal whispering around desolate shores.’ Keats again. I almost damned Jane for her Keats.
I went into the library. It was cold in there, and damp. The desk was strewn with letters and bills and last month’s auction catalogues, under a huge suspended brass lamp that had once hung in the cabin of Captain Henry Prince, in the Astrea II. On the windowsill there were five or six framed photographs: Jane when she was graduating from Wellesley; Jane and I standing outside a roadside diner in New Hampshire; Jane in the front garden of Quaker Lane Cottage; Jane with her mother and father, eyes squeezed up against the winter sunshine. I picked them up, one by one, and looked at them sadly.
Yet, there was something odd about them. None of them
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